


The Devotion To A Flower

by Lucy31



Series: Prompts [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Complient Until Season 5, F/M, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 19:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17473544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy31/pseuds/Lucy31
Summary: What he saw almost triggered a panic attack. As predicted, it wasn’t an ephemeral black soulmark. Rather, it was the same kind he had, engraved in her wrist. The name stood out, blue against her pale skin, carved in her veins and slightly pulsing with the rhythm of her heart beat.Mieczyslaw.His name. The name that only his father knew.Everything changes the day Stiles realizes he might be Lydia's soulmate.Originally written for stydia-fanfiction.tumblr





	The Devotion To A Flower

Stiles left his apartment without even paying attention to the clothes he was wearing. Lydia had called him with an edge to her voice, and it was enough to make him rush to her in the dark of night. Just one last street to cross and he would be in front of the bar. He stopped, trying to catch his breath and slow down the pulse pounding in his ears.

He slowly entered the bar and looked for a tuft of strawberry-blonde hair in the noisy crowd. When their stares met, he smiled at her and had to elbow a few drunken people out of his way to get to her. She had found a corner booth in the far end of the room, and Stiles couldn’t decide if it was a good or a bad sign. Lydia usually preferred to sit by a window. Seeing her in that corner could only mean two things: something bad had happened and she couldn’t stand any stranger’s gaze on her, or it was one of those nights when all Lydia wanted was him. He hoped it was the latter.

But as he got through, he couldn’t help noticing her stiff back and her stare that had turned glassy because of alcohol or tiredness, which meant it was most probably his first hypothesis. Thinking that someone could have hurt her wrenched his heart, and he forced his lips’ corners to draw a reassuring smile. When he was close enough, he bent down to sit, avoiding the lamp hanging low above the table.

“Stiles!” Lydia slid to sit in the middle of the booth and grabbed his arm to plant a kiss on his cheek.

He failed to contain a grin when he heard her voice turning into a drunken shriek. “Lydia!” he shouted, trying to use that same high-pitched tone to make her laugh. “I see you started long before me.” He took the two empty glasses in front of her and brought them to his nostrils. “Something sweet and…” The scent in the second glass puzzled him, “Lydia Martin, have you been drinking _beer_?” He tried to keep his tone as light and teasing as possible, but the way she acted made him feel tense.

Lydia didn’t drink beer. Ever. It was a statement as true as saying that the Earth was round. She had once confided to him that her father used to collect expensive bottles of craft beer, storing them meticulously. The day after he was gone, her mother had thrown all of them against the kitchen walls, and the entire house had stunk for weeks.

“Lydia, is everything alright?”

She stared at him and bit her lips; her smile was gone and her eyes shone too brightly. As she covered her mouth with her hand and discreetly looked away, Stiles took her in his arms to nestle her head in the crook of his neck and whisper reassuring words into her ear.

“You don’t have to hide your tears from me, you know that, right?”

She sniffed and turned to nuzzle his shoulder, letting his arms wrap her in a warm embrace. “Sorry, I… I’m not crying.”

“Are you gonna tell me why you called me at 2 AM, asking me to come here and why I found you getting drunk on freaking beer?” As her laugh got muffled by his jacket, he kissed the crown of her head and massaged her temple. “I’m not complaining,” he continued softly, “not at all. But I’d like to know if something’s wrong or if someone needs to have his ass kicked…”

He felt her laugh against his chest but couldn’t relax. It had been two years since they got into college and something like that had never happened. When they would have a bad day, they would call each other, meet somewhere and talk or drink until their eyelids were too heavy. After that, they would go home together and sleep at his or her place. The day after, everything was always better. It was the advantage of living on the same campus.

They had developed a close bond in high school and now, they were inseparable. After the Dread Doctors and the Eichen House nightmare, their senior year had been blissfully dull, allowing them to slowly strengthen their friendship. When the time had come to pick a university, it was inconceivable for both of them to not pick the same one.

Stiles was proud to say that they had reached a point in their relationship where they could communicate without using words, which was why he currently felt so helpless. He had no idea what was wrong with Lydia, _his_ Lydia, who had probably been hurt. He tried to look as composed as possible when he handed her a tissue. “I’m gonna get you some water and you’ll tell me everything, alright?”

She nodded, and he stood up while leaving the wet imprint of his lips on her cheek.

When Lydia was drunk, she was entirely different. In those moments, she looked so fragile it got him thinking that maybe it was her true nature. Not _fragile_ in a weak way, but in a genuine way. Her soul was made out of pure light, sometimes flickering with the slightest breeze when she was tired of putting her armour on. When it happened, when she no longer had the strength to protect herself, Stiles would be there, no questions asked. He thought she knew it, and for the hundredth time since her call had broken him out of his Wikipedia spiral, he wondered why she hadn’t called him sooner.

She could defend herself, that was not the problem. But sometimes, like tonight, he could see her bare soul. It shone right from inside of her. He knew it was unfamiliar to her, letting her soul out into the real world without any armour, letting it embrace its true shape. She used to shape her own soul, making it look like _she_ had intended. How many times had she pretended to be someone she wasn’t? Probably too many times. But she was different now. She wasn’t afraid to not match everyone’s expectations anymore. If Lydia was 21, her soul was a lot younger, still not used to leading the way.

And Stiles wanted more than anything to be there to witness every step.

He came back to their table with a glass of water and a large coffee.

She thanked him and took a sip of water. “I met someone called Mieczyslaw today. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to be more of an asshole than Peter Hale, but I guess I was wrong,” she blurted out.

Stiles felt his heart stop and had to cough to not choke on his coffee. “What?”

“I have to show you something.” As she started to remove the large wristband covering her soulmark, Stiles jumped to grab her hands.

“What the hell are you doing?” He looked left and right to make sure nobody had seen them and lowered his voice. “You’re not gonna show me your soulmark in the middle of a freaking bar, aren’t you?”

“Come on,” she said, rolling her eyes and removing her hands from his grasp, “nobody’s watching!”

“Lydia…” his voice was almost pleading, and he thought his head might explode under the pressure of his pulse pounding at his ears.

Stiles knew he was old-fashioned, but he was one of those people who still thought that showing your soulmark to someone was as intimate as daring to stand naked in front of someone for the first time. He wasn’t sure his heart would recover, even if a lot of their friends (okay, maybe all of them) already thought they were a couple.

And Stiles could see why.

They often shared the same bed and woke up to find that their bodies had found a way to cuddle in a very couple-y way. Not to mention, they could stay for an entire week at the other’s place without needing to bring anything. They already had one or two drawers with their names on it.

But seeing Lydia’s soulmark was a lot different for one reason above any other: Stiles was almost sure her soulmark already had its definitive shape, and he wasn’t ready to see it. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he would ever be ready to see it.

Admittedly, he didn’t believe in soulmarks. His own mark was proof that they weren’t always reliable. But despite what he thought, he knew it would hurt more than anything to see someone else’s name on Lydia’s wrist.

She ignored his silent pleading and laid her right arm under the table, discreetly removing her wristband. Stiles closed his eyes at the last second, feeling his cheeks burn so much it was embarrassing. The weight of her hand was burning his knee and it took everything in him to not take her hand in his own.

“Stiles, please open your eyes. Nobody’s watching!”

“But why? Lydia, please…”

“Because I need you!” She almost cried, “Stiles please, I… I don’t understand, I need you!”

Hearing her beg like that broke his heart. He lifted his head and only opened his eyes when he was sure he wouldn’t accidentally catch sight of a name that would appear in every nightmare he would have for the rest of his life. There was so much distress in her stare that he eventually nodded with a sigh.

“Okay, but quick. As soon as I’ve seen it, you put your wristband back on, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course!”

She looked so relieved it made him smile. Before looking down, he asked her, nibbling at his lips. “Are you sure you won’t regret this tomorrow?”

“No, it’s okay, it’s… It’s you and me, after all…” Her eyes were starting to shine with unshed tears again and Stiles bent down to kiss her cheek.

He inhaled deeply and looked down.

What he saw almost triggered a panic attack. As predicted, it wasn’t an ephemeral black soulmark. Rather, it was the same kind he had, engraved in her wrist. The name stood out, blue against her pale skin, carved in her veins and slightly pulsing with the rhythm of her heart beat.

_Mieczyslaw._

_His_ name. The name that only his father knew.

Without a second thought he stroked his fingertips over the quivering letters. He felt her relax under his touch, and she laid her head against his shoulder, her frail wrist still in his hands. The intimacy of the situation didn’t escape him but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the name.

His name.

In her veins.

_Her_ veins.

“I’ve always hated it.”

Her sharp tone brought him back to reality. “Hated your soulmark?” he asked, clearing his throat to keep his emotions under control. He slowly put her wristband back on while she spoke.

“Yeah… It started appearing around the time we had to deal with Jennifer Blake…” She stopped for a few seconds, letting all the pain and suffering that followed that name dissolve into the air. “I didn’t know him, but I already hated him. Who had the right to decide that my soul would belong to someone I didn’t know? To someone I still don’t know, by the way, because I refuse to believe that my so-called soulmate is that _jerk_ I met today…” Stiles still held her wrist in his hands on his lap and tried to massage her skin soothingly. “I hate him, Stiles, I hate him so much…”

At those words, he felt a lump in his throat and had to make a huge effort to remember that she wasn’t talking about him. “What did he tell you to make you hate him this much?”

“Not the guy I met. It’s not him, it _can’t_ be him. That guy,” she pointed her wrist. “If this is all true… I feel cheated, fate sucks. It’s just a big, bad joke…” She closed her eyes, her head still nestling on his shoulder and inching closer to his chest.

Stiles could tell she was exhausted. Lydia was trying not to show it, but now that he was there, and she had started talking, he could feel her slowly letting go.

She continued, her eyes still closed. “Have I ever told you how many names I’ve had on my wrist?”

“No…” His heart was beating wildly, he wondered how Lydia didn’t notice it. For the moment, it was the only thing he could tell about his emotional state. He would have plenty of time later to process the rest.

“Twenty-three from six to sixteen years old… 2.3 per year on average, since Jackson’s name stayed for three years…” She sighed and resumed with a slow and drowsy voice. “I’ve loved twenty-three people who were supposed to be meant for me at one point in my life and yet, it never felt – “She let her words hang above them, not daring to add the other ones. Words that were tangled in her drunken mind and that she was dying to unravel.

Stiles tried to not marvel too long at those words. They were so much like the ones occupying his mind for so long.

As if she could feel the strings that their unsaid words had woven between them, Lydia turned her hand around to intertwine their fingers, then ran her index along Stiles’s wristband. “Is it true? What people say about your soulmark?” Her voice was so soft he was sure he would choke with his love for her. “Can I see it?”

He barely heard her question, he couldn’t focus on anything other than his shallow breathing, and when Lydia brought his wrist to her lips to kiss it, he genuinely thought his heart was bursting.

Then, it seemed that she forgot her question, and she laid their hands on Stiles’s lap, her head nuzzling closer to his neck. “Why would he be different from all the others?” She closed her eyes again. “It’s just another random name. I don’t want him, I don’t want to know him. Even if he’s supposed to be _the one_ , I know he won’t be, he can’t be…” Her last words weren’t louder than a whisper.

A million of thoughts were jostling in Stiles’s mind but none of them made it to his mouth. When he realized Lydia had almost fallen asleep, he called her softly. “Lydia… Come on, I’m taking you home.”

“No…” she managed to articulate, “my roommates have friends over. Can I sleep at your place tonight?”

Stiles had a tiny apartment but had the advantage of not sharing with anyone. Lydia had turned her head and her breath was now tickling Stiles’s lips. She was so close that he instinctively tilted his head, almost feeling her lips against his own. But he took hold of himself and ran his tongue over his lips before answering. “Yes, of course. I think I even have clean sheets and we washed all your clothes last time, right?”

Her cheeks flushed, and she was so pretty Stiles almost forgot how to breathe.

“Yeah, I think so,” the memory of him blushing while handling her lace panties and bras was forever imprinted in her brain.

* * *

 

 

A few hours later, after Stiles had taken care of Lydia and listened to her breathe slowly and deeply in his bedroom, it was then that he realized the significance of what he had learned.

She had asked him to stay with her, and he had to use all of his remaining willpower to say no. If he didn’t take the time to think about the night’s events, he would lose his mind. He sat heavily on the couch, glanced one last time at his closed bedroom door, and took his head in his hands.

“Okay, first, you need to calm down…”

Speaking out loud always helped him clear his head and think more properly, but saying _those_ words out loud, the ones that had been running through his head non-stop since he saw Lydia’s soulmark, was impossible. Saying those words aloud would give them the opportunity to grow bigger, to take up as much space as possible to fill in the void. Not saying them would maybe allow him to keep them inside, small enough to help him forget about them.

Except the words _I’m Lydia’s soulmate since high school_ already took up the entire space in his brain. Surely, if he let them out, Lydia would see them hanging in his living room, in his bathroom, in his fridge, and in every drawer.

Because he loved her.

His soulmark could say whatever it wanted, he _knew_ he loved her. But after all, love and soulmate didn’t always go together, which meant that if he could love Lydia without her being his soulmate, why couldn’t he be her soulmate without having her love? And moreover, maybe it was another Mieczyslaw…

He shook his head; his mind was a giant mess. Whether he wanted it or not, he would have to let it out at some point. He grabbed his phone. 4 AM. Wincing, he called Scott. After all, it was only 1 AM over there, he might still be awake.

“ _Stiles?”_ his sleepy voice told him otherwise. “ _I’m torn between wanting you to have a good reason to wake me up before my early shift tomorrow and hoping nothing bad happened…”_

Stiles slapped his forehead. “I’m sorry man, I totally forgot… But it’s important! I mean, it’s nothing bad… Well, that depends on what you call _bad_ but –“

“ _Stiles…”_

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I – “He sighed and considered the words he could use to explain what had happened. “I saw Lydia’s soulmark.”

Scott took a deep breath. “ _Stiles, I love you man, you’re like my brother. You know that, right? But please don’t call me in the middle of the night to tell me about your sex dreams!”_

“No! I _saw_ her soulmark. She showed it to me a few hours earlier and now…she’s asleep in my bed and…”

_“Look, I’m happy you two finally acted on your feelings but – “_

“Scott!” Stiles cut him off again, his cheeks burning hot. Scott’s insinuation wasn’t helping him to stay calm. “Nothing happened, listen to me, please! I’m so sorry I woke you up, but I need your help, or my head is literally gonna explode!”

Something in his voice must have scared Scott, because when he replied, his tone wasn’t aggravated anymore, and he sounded awake. _“Yeah, sorry. Tell me.”_

Stiles felt suddenly as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he was eventually able to take a deep breath that calmed him down. He started to explain everything: Lydia’s phone call, the beer, the guy she met, and her soulmark. “Did you know she’s had her definitive soulmark since the beginning of junior year?”

_“I didn’t know it, but I had my suspicions. We all did, right? I mean, she clearly started to change around that time.”_

“Yeah…” The memory of the kiss she had given him to stop his panic attack came back to him. Being deep in thought made it easier to blurt out the rest. “It’s written, Mieczyslaw…on her wrist.”

Scott didn’t answer right away, and for a second Stiles thought that he hadn’t heard him. “Scott?”

“ _Yeah, yeah, I’m still there…_ ” He took a deep breath, _“I’m really sorry – “_

“No Scott, you… You don’t understand, it’s… That’s my real name. I’m Mieczyslaw.”

Stiles heard muffled sounds of crumpled sheets as if Scott had jumped out of his bed. The picture of his best friend leaping with joy for him made him smile.

_“Dude, why didn’t you lead with that? We’ll talk about that name later but dude, that’s awesome!”_

“Honestly, I don’t know what to think about it…” Stiles left his sentence hanging. He didn’t need to tell Scott everything that encumbered his mind because his best friend already knew. He already knew what Stiles thought about soulmarks as well as his doubts about soulmates. Most importantly, Scott knew that what was carved in Stiles’s veins since the day he was born wasn’t the name _Lydia_. Stiles knew he didn’t have to tell Scott how much it wrenched his heart that someone had decided that he would be Lydia’s soulmate when she wasn’t his.

“ _Stiles, I’m still sure your soulmark has something to do with her, it has to. You were never just friends. There always was something more between you two, anybody could see it in high school. Why don’t you show her your soulmark? Maybe she’ll know what it’s about…”_

“No, I –” He stood up and started pacing the living room. When he saw his reflexion in the mirror, Stiles realized he had run his hand so many times in his hair that he now looked like a mad scientist. “Look, even if something does happen between us, it can’t be because of our soulmarks! I’ve loved this girl since I’m eight years old, Scott! If she actually loves me, I need to know that it’s not just because of a stupid name on her wrist. Besides, she told me herself that she _hated_ that guy. She doesn’t want to meet him…”

“ _I can’t believe you’re supposed to be the smart one…”_

Stiles heard him heave a long sigh, he was about to reply something when Scott’s voice cut him off.

_“I can hear you open your mouth to say something but you’re gonna shut up, sit down and listen to me with all the attention you can muster… I hope you realize how nice I’m being because I could make so much fun of both of you right now…”_

His sudden aggravated tone froze Stiles.

“ _I’m serious Stiles, sit down.”_

“Alright! Jeez… Someone’s feeling really True Alpha tonight…” He went back to his couch and sat down with a thud.

“ _Stiles, it’s really simple actually. She hates that Mieczys-something because she doesn’t know it’s you! She wishes she had_ Stiles _on her wrist because she loves you. Now, I’m gonna let you think about that and ask you to go to sleep, before I hang up. Alright?”_

At the same time, Stiles’s phone buzzed with a second call, “Hold on a sec…” He took his phone away from his ear and cursed when he saw who was calling him.

“ _That girl again?”_ Scott asked.

“Yeah… When I figured she couldn’t understand things that were implied, I began to say _no_ to her with very explicit words, but it seems like she doesn’t understand that either… I hope you know that’s all your fault, right?”

It had happened before Scott was bitten. They were fourteen and got plastered for the first time at a birthday party. At some point that night, Stiles had left Scott’s side to dance like a loon to the new Katy Perry song. In the meantime, Erica had come to Scott to ask if the rumour about Stiles already having his definitive soulmark was true. Without realizing what he was doing, Scott told her it was true, and he even told her what it said: B612.

That was when the rumours began to spread. Erica deduced that his soulmark indicated a birthdate. If the first digit represented the month, then logically the last two digits would indicate the date. So, together 612 would mean that Stiles’s soulmate was born on June the 12th…which just so happened to be Erica’s birthdate.

After that, and mostly during junior and senior years, there always was someone to shove an ID card in his hands and pretend to be his soulmate.

How did that rumour follow him across the country? It was a mystery. But as far as Stiles was concerned, Scott was to blame, and now this girl, Ashley wouldn’t leave him alone. It had been a month since the day he agreed to give her his number because she had missed a few classes.

He rejected the call and resumed with Scott. “It’s just too complicated…”

“ _Because of your soulmark?”_

With a long sigh, he leaned against the couch. “Why doesn’t it just say _Lydia_ , mmh? I mean, she’s the only one who matters. I don’t want anyone else…”

“ _You do realize that’s exactly what she’s thinking, right? And that it’s the reason why she’s acting the way she is?”_

_“_ But why today? What changed?”

_“She told you, she met that… Help me?”_

“Mieczyslaw.”

“ _Yeah, thanks. She met that guy today, and she realized there was a possibility her soulmate would be a Polish guy with a name she never heard… Maybe she hadn’t thought about it being an actual possibility until today. I mean, you don’t meet a Mie-“_

_“_ czyslaw…”

_“czyslaw wandering through the streets every day. If your name was… I don’t know, Lucas… she would have met one sooner and would have realized it sooner…”_

“Mmh…”

“ _Show it to her, show her your soulmark. I’m sure it has something to do with her.”_

_“_ I don’t know… I don’t wanna fall back into that trap, you know? I spent so much time trying to understand what it could stand for… We never found anything that made sense! I have to believe it’s a mistake or it will drive me crazy.”

Stiles kept quiet for a little while, and his eyelids felt heavier by the second.

Scott’s voice was deep and serious when he resumed. “ _Why do you think she got your real name and not_ Stiles _?”_

He shrugged without realizing Scott couldn’t see him. “Maybe because it’s not me… She might move to Poland after college and she’ll meet a lot of attractive Mieczyslaws…”

“ _Stiles, come on!_ ”

“I don’t know! What do you want me to say?”

“ _Sometimes, the shape you take reflects the person that you are.”_

Stiles remembered Derek saying that years ago when they had to deal with the kanima.

Before he could say something, Scott continued. “ _It’s called a_ soul _mark, right? What if sometimes, it actually reflected your soul and not just your name?”_

This idea made Stiles’s heart beat faster. Mieczyslaw was the name his mother had given him. It was what his parents used to call him…until his mother died, taking that part of his soul away with her. His father stopped using that name because it was too painful and started calling his son with the name he used outside of the house, Stiles.

“ _Go to sleep, alright? It’s late and I really think the best thing you can do is wait until_ _the morning. Tomorrow, you’ll have a clear mind. If you only remember one thing I said, please let it be this: Show Lydia your soulmark. Tomorrow is Sunday, so you’ll have time to talk.” ~~~~_

“Yeah, thanks man… And sorry for waking you up.”

“ _It’s okay, but I’ll be expecting the most beautiful thank you speech when you two get married… And a gift. An expensive one.”_

Stiles snorted and wished Scott good luck for his shift before hanging up.

 

* * *

 

 

When the sun rose, Stiles obviously hadn’t slept. All of his doubts kept flashing before his eyes the entire night. _What if she felt like she_ had _to love me? What if I wasn’t that Mieczyslaw? What if my soulmark was about someone else and I end up making her miserable? Or what if it meant I shouldn’t have a soulmate? Or that I shouldn’t be involved with anyone?_

As soon as a faint light started to filter through the holes in the blinds, Stiles stood up and started making breakfast. He still didn’t know what to do. Exhausted, he went through the motions of a morning routine. He did all of things he always did whenever Lydia would sleep at his place. He stood in the shower, staring at his wrist for a long time, glaring at those numbers that had never revealed their secret: B612.

He’d considered many hypotheses, each one more absurd than the next. Food colouring, a weird bra size, a star or a planet’s name, an apartment number, a room, a software… The most logical was still the birthdate theory, but even that… No, he couldn’t let himself spiral like that again. He clenched his fist, making his soulmark stand out, and closed his eyes.

When he got out of the bathroom, Lydia still wasn’t up, so he collapsed on the couch and eventually fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

Something lightly grazing his cheek woke him up five hours later. He opened his eyes, but thought he was still dreaming because Lydia was kneeling beside him, stroking his cheek with a look in her eyes that made his heart jump so high it reached his throat. She must have just used the shower because Stiles recognized the scent of the shampoo she kept at his place, claiming she would never be caught using his shower gel that was also his shampoo…and sometimes his washing up liquid…or even his hand soap.

She had borrowed one of his shirts and pyjama pants. It felt so normal to see her wearing his clothes that for a moment, the tiny apartment he never really liked felt like the cosiest home. The breeze coming from the open window was playing with the locks that escaped her braid, blowing them across her cheeks and chin. With the daylight behind her, she was mesmerizing. She was gazing at him, brushing her fingers against his face and hair with such tenderness that Stiles couldn’t get a single word out of his mouth. He had the same feeling he experienced the night before. Lydia was made out of pure light, everything about her was beautiful, from her nose to her soul.

“I heated the breakfast up, are you hungry?” She spoke in a soft voice, as if she was afraid to wake him up too suddenly.

He nodded before finally being able to articulate something. “I’ll be right there.”

As she kissed his cheek with a smile, her hair tickled his chin and neck, burying him in an ocean of cinnamon scented autumn leaves. Then, he heard her footsteps heading behind the couch, toward the open kitchen, and he slowly stood up. Her chuckle made him realize his feet had led him to stand silently behind her.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

Stiles couldn’t think of a better answer than “I’m watching you”, which he pronounced with a tired voice.

It made her laugh more, and he placed his arms around her waist to kiss the crown of her head with his eyes closed. He breathed in slowly as Lydia leaned against him. This was exactly the kind of thing that made people believe they were a couple, but Stiles couldn’t care less. He would take her in his arms as long as she would let him.

“Are you feeling better?” His question was half muffled by her hair covering his mouth, but Lydia heard it and nodded. She disentangled from Stiles’s embrace and started to set the table.

“I’m really sorry about last night…” She said with a sigh.

“Why?”

When she lifted her head with two plates in her hands, she was blushing and biting her lips.

“I showed you my soulmark in the middle of a bar!” She continued to bring things to the table to avoid meeting his gaze. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have behaved like I did, getting drunk and bothering you… It wasn’t worth it.”

Stiles didn’t know how to reply. Scott’s voice was starting to take up all the space in his head. _Show her your soulmark._

They finished setting the table in silence and when they sat, Stiles ran his hands along his face, massaging his skull with his fingers.

“It’s alright, Lydia. I would have liked it better if you’d have called me sooner but it’s not a big deal, okay? You never bother me, and besides,” his cheeks burnt at the memory of her bare wrist, “nobody else saw it.”

“That’s the point! I shouldn’t have showed it to you… Who does that? I feel like… like a slut… I know people called me that in school. Maybe they were right after all…”

Stiles didn’t understand what went through his mind at that moment. Maybe it was a thought like: _Anything is better than letting Lydia think such a thing about herself_. With a sharp movement, he removed his wristband and laid his wrist on the table, his soulmark bare and exposed in the sunny kitchen. Lydia’s eyes widened, and she froze for a few seconds before hesitantly moving her hand forward to lightly brush the numbers with her fingertips.

“See? It’s nothing and we’re even now…” He tried to cover his quivering voice with a low tone, but the truth was, showing Lydia his soulmark wasn’t nothing, and he was sure his lungs would explode if his heart kept beating like it did.

Lydia shivered at the sound of his voice and quickly removed her fingers. Still dazed, it took Stiles a few seconds before covering his soulmark. When he lifted his head, he saw her nibbling at her lips and staring at her empty plate.

“Did you really already have it when we were kids?”

He nodded. “I was born with it. We couldn’t read it then, but it was already there.”

“B612… Do you have any idea what that could mean?” She asked casually while taking some vegetables and scrambled eggs.

“No, and I don’t care.”

“So, you don’t believe in the birthdate theory? If I remember correctly, Erica was quite adamant about that.”

Stiles frowned, if there was one topic they never discussed (at least not until the day before), it was their soulmarks. He had always assumed that everyone knew about it, of course, but he never thought Lydia would have paid attention to Erica before she turned into a werewolf.

“What?” she asked, staying busy with her fork. “You know, the rumours about your soulmark existed long before we actually knew each other…”

“I’m aware, thank you…” It wasn’t easy, talking about those rumours and his soulmark to Lydia. The main reason being the gorgeous strawberry-blonde in front of him. It had always hurt him to hear people believing there was a world where he wouldn’t be madly in love with her. If those numbers were familiar to her, she surely hid it well. “To answer your question,” he resumed, clearing his throat, “no, I don’t believe it. Scott and I had a lot of theories, and I have to admit that the birthdate seems… logical…I guess… But – “

He left his words hanging while chewing on some toast, thinking about how he could explain why it was actually not logical at all, but she cut him off.

“Do you mean that among all the girls who pretended to be your soulmate, there wasn’t a single one you liked? Not even… I forgot her name… The skank who’s been chasing after you for a month at least?”

Stiles slowly swallowed, if only to help his mouth to close itself, “Ashley?”

“Mmh…” It seemed that her stare was glued to her plate and to the pulp that she had made with her eggs. Right at that instant, Stiles caught himself hoping. Their soulmarks didn’t matter. Silly as his ten-year-plan to make Lydia fall in love with him was, now it was the only thing that mattered. He wouldn’t tell her his real name, and he had to end this conversation about soulmates because he knew there would be only one thing that would untangle the words in his minds: that despite everything, Lydia would fall in love with him.

He took a deep breath and grabbed the hand she had laid beside her orange juice. “Lydia, look, I don’t care about my soulmark, and I don’t care about those soulmates’ stories, alright? And you shouldn’t drive yourself crazy about yours either. If you don’t wanna meet that guy, you don’t have to. People ending up with their so-called soulmate is rare, and I’m not even sure if those people are happier than the rest of us…” The thought of Scott and Allison crossed his mind, but he took hold of himself before plunging into that abyss. “And if I’m being honest,” he let go of her hand and stood up to grab some milk from the fridge. He wouldn’t be able to tell her what he needed to say in front of her. “I don’t see how any relationship could be more genuine than the one we have, and I don’t wanna find out.”

A few seconds passed before he dared turning around and when he did, he almost dropped the bottle because he saw Lydia staring at him with such intensity, her beautiful lips perfectly parted.

She stood up and slowly came forward, nibbling at her lips while taking the bottle from his hands to lay it on the table. Then, she nuzzled her head against his chest, right under his chin, and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Me neither,” he heard her whisper.

Stiles put his arms around her and hugged her tight against him, burying his face in her hair. He kissed her faintly once there, then twice, and the third kiss was a little heavier, lingering more. Letting Lydia’s sighs of content guide him, he slowly followed the curve of her beautiful face and kissed the corner of her eye, her ear, until he reached her cheek and her dimple. She titled her head slightly and when he felt the hint of a kiss on the corner of his lips, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

It was enough to break the spell they were under, and they quickly moved away from each other. They had kissed (once), but since that day, they had never come so close to kissing again, and Stiles had never felt her lips, quivering and shy like this before. His hands were still shaking when he grabbed his phone. He saw Lydia pursing her lips when she glanced at the screen. Ashley.

Swearing, he refused the incoming call and without a single word, they both went back to the table. There was a heaviness in Stiles’s stomach, but neither he nor Lydia acknowledged the elephant in the room, trapping more silent words in their minds and tying them up next to the other ones.

The rest of the day went by too fast. During the few minutes when Lydia was in his bedroom to change into her clothes to head back at her place, Stiles could feel his heart beating in his entire body. It felt as if his skin was too tight and the only thing left inside of him were his veins pulsing stronger and stronger. He didn’t want her to go, he had to find an excuse to make her stay, anything to keep her here and fall asleep with her warm body against him. But she opened the door and any consistency he had left escaped his brain. He could see her hesitating, fiddling with the buttons on her jacket, checking at least four times if she had everything in her purse. She had that fake smile, the one she used when she was embarrassed. He knew all the signs and they meant she was about to do something she didn’t want to.

She didn’t want to go home.

He knew that.

He could feel the tension in the room, and it made him sweat. But just a second later, he was alone in his apartment and he realized that his brain must have been disconnected somehow because he hadn’t said anything to her. He hadn’t even hugged her good-bye.

Just like that, his apartment became too cold and too small again.

With a sigh, he turned his phone off when he saw Ashley’s name displayed on the screen again.

 

* * *

 

 

Lydia spent the entire week thinking about Stiles and about their almost kiss. She kept replaying it in her head with the hope it would magically turn into an actual kiss. Sadly, that Mieczyslaw was also in her mind. She wasn’t like Stiles, she couldn’t completely forget everything she believed regarding soulmates, but she was trying. His words had actually helped her a lot. Her heart had leapt in her chest when he had implied that he would choose their relationship over any other one. She was so dazed, she had almost kissed him and needed the entire night and day afterwards to recover from it.

And then, there was his soulmark.

She had seen it with her own eyes and couldn’t hide behind the excuses of rumours anymore. The entire week hadn’t been enough to reason with her heart and tell it that no, it had nothing to do with her. But hope had planted its seed and nothing could remove it.

Nothing except maybe that bitter taste in her mouth when she glanced at that unknown and cold name on her wrist. The laws of the universe were beyond her comprehension and that was a first. She truly hoped one day, she would be able to convince herself that those soulmarks’ stories didn’t matter.

That week, Lydia and Stiles barely saw each other. Their schedules kept changing from one day to the next. The only quiet time they managed to have was on Wednesday night when she invited him to have dinner at her place (causing her roommates gossip a little more when they found them cuddling on the couch, watching some documentary on Netflix).

On Friday night, Lydia had to go out with her classmates to a reception for one of her professors who was being awarded for his work on Riemannian geometry. She had asked Stiles if he wanted to go with them (there was an all-you-can-eat buffet after all…) but he had promised his dad to call him and couldn’t stand him up for the tenth time in two weeks.

Of course, the fact that Lydia had found the speakers too presumptuous and the food too cheap had nothing to do with Stiles’s absence. At least, that was what she tried to convince herself. On her way home, she tried to call him to complain about how low the expectations were in her field these days, hoping to turn her disappointment into that tender irritation she always felt after spending hours with a Stiles who only kept talking to hear her groan, snort, laugh at his jokes, and find more topics for them to debate. But her disappointment deepened into gloominess when he didn’t pick up.

It was crazy how everything was tasteless and foreign when he wasn’t with her. Her studies, her apartment, her books, herself. Everything.

 

* * *

 

Finally giving in to her desire to see Stiles, Lydia decided to show up at his place with leftovers from the buffet, a little before noon on Saturday.

It had been a while since she had decided to not pay attention to her heart beating wildly in her chest whenever she was standing in front of his door, just like she had decided there was nothing strange about the overwhelming feelings she had for Stiles. So what if they were stronger than anything she had ever felt? It was one of those things she had to live with.

However, it was impossible to not hear the sound of her insides tearing open when his door opened before she even had a chance to knock – revealing a girl. Thick locks framed her porcelain face, brushing against cleavage that could catch the eyes of any human. Her legs were impossibly long, and the girl was at least a head taller than Lydia. When the girl smirked at her, Lydia felt as paralysed as if she had been scratched by a kanima **.** She couldn’t move or say anything and watched her step away, unable to divert her eyes from the girl’s supple walk and her short, form-fitting dress.

In front of her, the door was now closed, and Lydia couldn’t find it in herself to knock. She realized her knees were weakening when she felt the wall behind her. She leaned into it for support, the tray covered in aluminium foil still in her hands. Words failed to describe what she had just witnessed. The only things she could think about were that the salmon should be put in the fridge, that the cheese would soon fill the hallway with a pungent scent and that she wouldn’t eat all that meat by herself. Her body and brain seemed to be disconnected because she stayed there, staring at the aluminium foil in her hands for a while. She felt her phone buzz in her purse, but the noise seemed far away, as if it didn’t concern her.

When Stiles opened his door, bringing the fragrance of his shampoo into the hallway along with that scent she loved so much – a scent that was just _him_ , the bubble around Lydia burst and she came back to reality. Her legs and arms were numb. How long had she stayed like that?

“Lydia?” Stiles stared at her with an interrogatory expression, eventually smiling at her while closing his door. “I was about to go to your apartment, I texted you an hour ago. Didn’t you get my text?”

At least, that answered her question about the noise her phone made…

She saw his expression turn from a smile to something reflecting the distress she must have been displaying.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” he asked.

There was so much concern in his voice that Lydia was sure her heart would bleed if he kept looking at her like that. How could he look so worried about her when he had just spent the night between some top model’s thighs? That mental picture was enough to break her from her trance and fill her with anger and sadness.

Stiles looked at her without understanding and opened his mouth to let out a soft sound.

Collecting her wits, Lydia shoved the tray in his hands and ran away, trying to not pay attention at his voice calling for her. The last thing she heard before going down the stairs were curses following the sound of the tray crashing on the floor, preventing him from running after her.

When she reached her apartment, she allowed her emotions to explode as she cried, screamed, and threw pillows at the walls. The sound of glasses breaking on the floor made her heart stop. She perked up her ears, hoping her roommates weren’t there to ask questions about what happened. Hearing nothing else but her heart pulsing strong through her veins, she sighed and remembered they were both at their parents’ houses for the weekend.

The sudden rush of adrenaline soothed her in a way, allowing her to get some perspective. She wiped her wet cheeks and eyes with her hands and grabbed the hand broom to sweep the bits of glass when she heard someone knocking at her door.

For a second, her heart raced, thinking her neighbours had heard the noise and were complaining or wanted to know what had happened. She cleared her throat to speak with a voice as devoid of emotions as possible. “I’m sorry, everything’s alright, I just…” She glanced around the room, looking for an excuse when her eyes fell on the window. “I forgot to close the window and there was a huge draft.”

But Stiles’s voice replied. “Lydia, let me in, please…”

Her blood ran cold in her veins and her eyes prickled with tears again. “Stiles?” she cursed herself for the sobs in her voice. She had acted on an impulse when she ran away and she had to fix this, act as if nothing had happened. “I’ll be right there!” She blew her nose and splashed water over her face before remembering she had mascara on. Stiles was still knocking and calling for her as she was removing and reapplying her make-up. “Two minutes, I’m coming!”

“What’s wrong, Lydia? You’re scaring me, did something happen to you?”

His question suddenly froze her, and she came to a standstill with her mascara brush barely touching her lashes. Her chest tightened until she had to cough to help her breathe.

_That was it._

What she thought could be love this entire time was just Stiles being worried. He had always been selfless, unless his friends or family were involved. In that case, he completely forgot about everyone else. No wonder she mistook that with love. Stiles’s love was unconditional. What he felt for her wasn’t different from what he felt for Scott. She knew she shouldn’t blame him for that, it was one of his best qualities. But knowing and doing were two different things and right now, she wanted to yell at him and kiss him fiercely until he would forget all about the girl he had spent the night with.

“Lydia!”

Fearing that he would draw everyone’s attention on them, she eventually got to the door and opened it, trying to look as composed as possible. “Stop yelling like that or you’ll scare my neighbours.” Crossing her arms, she gestured him to come in.

As soon as she closed the door, Stiles turned around, almost trapping her between him and the wall.

“Did something happen? You scared me!”

“Nothing happened…” She pushed him away to finish sweeping the bits of glass. “That would be a better question for you… You know, you could have just told me you had a date last night instead of lying about having to call your father.”

“A da –” As he stopped talking, Lydia lifted her head to see him blushing, red as a tomato. “You saw her?”

The fact that he didn’t deny it broke Lydia’s heart into even smaller pieces than it already was. She lowered her head and started sweeping dust around her rather than let him see the tears she felt at the corners of her eyes. “It would have been hard to _not_ see her…”

“But… How long did you stay in front of my door?”

“Was it Ashley?” she asked, eluding his question.

“Yes…and I know it sounds cliché, but it really wasn’t what it looked like…”

“Oh really?” she scoffed, still not looking at him. “So, she didn’t spend the night at your place?”

Once again, images and sounds flooded her mind. _Her_ Stiles whispering someone else’s name into an ear that wasn’t hers, kissing the skin of a girl who wasn’t her… Too absorbed trying to make those images go away, Lydia didn’t hear his answer and didn’t hear him stepping toward her. When she stood up to dispose of the bits of glass, she felt his hand tenderly grabbing her arm.

“Lydia,” his voice was so soft she couldn’t help the gasp coming out of her mouth. “Can you tell me what’s happening? I’m a little lost here…”

She took a deep breath to collect her wits. “Nothing is happening, you can screw whomever the hell you want. I should have known you’d eventually give in to that stupid birthdate theory because why would it mean something else, mmh?”

Very well aware of the jealousy in her tone and hating it with every fibre of her body, she had blurted out her accusation with a voice she didn’t even recognize. It made Stiles remove his hand from her arm as quickly as if he had burnt himself. She was only now remembering that Stiles had never answered her when she had asked him if he was attracted to Ashley. After all, he did tell her he didn’t believe in soulmates or in soulmarks. Maybe it was simply because he couldn’t see himself living with the same person for his entire life.

Lydia’s head was spinning. It was stupid and absurd to think that about Stiles, she knew it was wrong. It wasn’t like him at all to have a one-night stand. She wasn’t even sure he had slept with anyone since the werecoyote and yet… Her brain was so focused on that new version of Stiles it had created that she couldn’t think of anything else.

And the jealousy that wouldn’t go away was making everything worse.

As if he was able to hear her internal struggles, Stiles suddenly burst out. “Lydia, please, stop!” He didn’t touch her but his shattered expression was enough to muffle the jealousy inside of her. “Lydia, you’re…you’re tearing me apart!” He nibbled at his lips, trying to keep his breath inside of his lungs by covering his mouth with a shaking wrist.

The thought that he was about to cry and that she was making him feel so miserable tightened Lydia’s chest. She wanted to take him in her arms and erase the last minutes from both of their minds. But she stood in front of him, a cold expression that her heart despised plastered on her face.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice was quivering and he didn’t even try to conceal the wetness under his eyes. “Ashley showed up last night, completely drunk. She wouldn’t stop knocking at my door and yelling. I wasn’t gonna answer, but even my dad heard her, and I eventually opened the door. When I did, she just threw herself at me and collapsed on my couch a few minutes after. What was I supposed do? Kick her out? So, I let her sleep there, and I called my dad back…” He diverted his eyes from her, and Lydia thought she saw the hint of a smirk on his lips. “I did take her phone to change my number though…”

She couldn’t help but snort, making his smirk turn into a genuine smile. His eyes weren’t on her, but she could picture them just as easily as if he had been looking at her. If he had, she knew what she would have found: his heart. His bare heart which he kept giving her, over and over again, even after all this time, without her daring to believe it.

Lydia was struggling with too many emotions flooding inside of her, and it was too much. Everything she had forced herself to unlearn was coming back. She couldn’t help but keep the same straight face she used to keep in front of her parents, when they were fighting and the only thing she wanted was to see them hug and say sweet things to each other. It was the same face she used to wear in high school when she forced herself to act casual with her boyfriends, when all she wanted were love declarations and flowers. Her heart was begging her to stop it, because it wasn’t her father, it wasn’t Jackson, it wasn’t just anyone she had in front of her. It was _him_ , it was Stiles, the love of her life. He _was_ her soulmate, whatever her soulmark said.

She would find it in herself to believe that soulmarks didn’t matter, just like he did. Her love for him was powerful enough. All she needed to do was to free the words in her mind. Then, maybe she would be able to wear her heart on her smile and in her eyes, just like he did.

But when Stiles stared at her again, his hopeful expression turned into a hurt one. “Lydia, when I told you I didn’t care about my soulmark, it was the truth! Why don’t you believe me? Did I ask you if you had slept with that Mieczyslaw guy?”

The question disconcerted her. She wanted to believe him, she wanted it so badly, but a small part of her brain still couldn’t. “Why would I have slept with him?” She asked him with an anger in her voice that made her heart ache.

“I don’t know!” He shrugged and threw up his arms in the air with sudden despair in his eyes that made Lydia want to cry. “We have apparently reached that point in our relationship where we’re having fun expecting the most absurd things from each other, so I’ll ask you now. Did you have sex with him?”

“No!” She had to do something to stop fiddling with her fingers, keep herself busy long enough to figure out a solution to that argument that was clearly devastating him as much as her.

She went to the kitchen and grabbed the first cloth she found to dry the dishes. Now that she was in another room, she couldn’t stop sobbing, fearfully expecting to hear the slam of the front door. Though she could almost still think straight when he first came in, it was now impossible to find any kind of consistency between her rational thoughts, her feelings, and what came out of her mouth.

A groan of frustration escaped her lips when she realized she was drying the same plate over and over again. But Stiles hadn’t left, and she heard his footsteps stopping at the kitchen door. The thought that he had maybe found a way to unravel the knots, all those unsaid words that had formed in her mind, gave her hope and she stopped sobbing.

“Lydia,” his voice was soft again, filled with a radiant warmth that soothed her aching heart and filled her lungs with fresh air. “Can we stop whatever we’re doing for a minute? Could you tell me why you’re acting like this?”

“Because it hurts…” It was barely a whisper, but Stiles must have heard it because he came closer, leaning against the table and waiting for her to continue. When she resumed, her voice and breaths were calmer. “It hurts because for a minute I thought that –” She closed her eyes, she couldn’t do it.

“What, Lydia? What did you think? I swear to you, nothing ever happened with that girl, I’m not even attracted to her…”

“I believe you. That’s not what it’s about.” As she said those words, she realized she could finally believe them and relaxed a little. “At least, not entirely…”

“Then, what is it about? Because I…” He stopped to breathe slowly in and added in a low voice, “I’d never do that to you.”

Lydia was happy he couldn’t see her face, because she was sure it must have been as red as the chili powder next to the stove. “It’s silly,” she said, shaking her head. She felt him coming closer behind her, and as he took a strand of her hair between his fingers, whispering her name, she decided to start with the smallest knot in her mind. “Have you read _The Little Prince_?” She winced with her entire face, feeling stupid.

“Yes.” It wasn’t more than a murmur, but it rang so clear inside of her, that it almost felt like he already knew what she was going to say. Loosing herself in the feeling of his fingers in her hair, her next question escaped her lips without her brain noticing.

“Do you remember the name of his home planet?”

Stiles let out a breathy laugh, “B612?”

She nibbled at her lips and gave a slight nod.

One knot.

“Why?”

“It’s silly, really, I shouldn’t – “

“No, it’s not. Please, tell me… Does it have…something to do with you?” His voice was urging her to go on, to explain what he had never understood, and his hopeful tone gave her the courage to tell him what had been nagging her since she had seen his soulmark, and long before that, if she was being honest with herself.

“You remember when I told you we used to read _The Little Mermaid_ with my grand-mother Lorraine?”

“Yeah, she called you Ariel…” There was a smile in his voice and it filled Lydia with such intense joy that she caught herself smiling.

Two knots.

“Well, one day, she gave me a very beautiful edition of _The Little Prince_ because she liked to say that I…that I had the soul of a little prince. I didn’t understand what that meant so, she offered me the book and read it with me.” To distract her mind from the sound her blood made when it surged through her temples, she began to clean the dishes again. “I think that what moved her in that character were the same things that moved her in me. When I was a kid, I was scared to be left alone. I think she knew my parents would divorce, and she kept telling me that whatever happened, even when I felt alone, I should remind myself that someone was waiting for me…just like the rose was waiting for the little prince to come back to B612. She said that if _I_ felt alone, my rose was also feeling alone and that I should never doubt it…even if I didn’t know who my rose was or where it was hidden. She would say, _Your rose is there, out there, somewhere, trust me_. She reminded me of it whenever my parents were fighting. I think that one of the reasons I had so many names on my wrist is because my soul always ached for that rose, always thought I would find it…in Jackson, Eric, Max…whomever he was, always hoped with all that I had he was _the one_. But they were never able to help me feel less alone, to help me feel at home. But I guess it’s because I always tried to be someone I wasn’t, you know? That’s why they weren’t definitive names, they didn’t love me… Not the real me anyway.”

As Lydia spoke, it felt like knots kept unravelling in her mind. The words were flowing so easily that she wondered why she hadn’t given in sooner. She was so absorbed by her memories and thoughts that she startled when she felt Stiles’s hands shyly grabbing her waist. Leaning against him to give him permission, she sighed as his grasp tightened and his lips brushed her skull.

He cleared his throat, but his voice was still hoarse. “Why didn’t you tell me the other day?”

“Because…” it was hard to focus with Stiles’s heart beating as fast as hers against her back, but she closed her eyes and gave him her last tangled words. Like a hook, his heart unwound the strands, one knot at a time, giving them more than freedom with each beat. Giving them a purpose. With each unravelled word, she felt his entire body getting lighter, as if she was helping Stiles untangle his own words.

“Because even though I kept telling myself that soulmarks weren’t always reliable, I couldn’t convince myself and… It’s not _your_ name I have on my wrist, which doesn’t make any sense… Because it should be your name… The last thing I want is to hurt you…and besides, my theory is maybe as dumb and random as the birthdate one…especially if you’re not my soulmate because…when I’m with you, all those questions, those voices in my head, they don’t matter anymore. It’s like I said when I showed you my soulmark, it’s you and me, Stiles… It’s easy…” She was brushing her fingertips against the hairs on his arms, trying to hold back her sobs.

She felt him hug her even tighter and kiss the crown of her head again, almost burying his nose in her hair. He took a deep breath and whispered in her ear, “You never asked me about my real name.”

She froze, then tried to turn around in his arms, forcing him to loosen his hold on her. As she leaned against the sink with an astounded look in her eyes, Stiles took a small step back and breathed slowly in and out.

One time.

Two times.

“You… You know my parents didn’t call me _Stiles_ … right?” he asked, half smirking, half stuttering.

“Do you mean – “

As she bit her lips, trying to supress a treacherous smile, Stiles was fumbling with his wallet. He gave her his ID with shaking hands and an adorable half-smile. She took it, and there it was, staring at her –

_Mieczyslaw Stilinski_.

She gaped at him. The memories jostled in her brain. She hadn’t paid attention, but it couldn’t be a coincidence that the day she got her definitive soulmark was the day of the sacrifice. The day when the little boy with a Polish name died, gave her that part of his soul for safe-keeping. It was also the day she had kissed him, giving him his breath back. The day everything changed, without her even noticing.

Before she had time to say anything, Stiles resumed. “As for your theory… The day you showed me your soulmark, I kind of had to tell Scott…and he had an idea. He told me that maybe, sometimes the soulmark actually reflected the soul of your soulmate so… If you tell me your grand-mother used to say you had the soul of a little prince, I’d say it makes more sense than a birthdate, don’t you think?”

The smile on his lips made her smile.

“You told Scott?”

“Well, you don’t find out every day that your name is carved in the veins of the girl you’ve been in love with since forever… I had to tell someone or I’m sure I would have exploded, you know?”

“Oh, I know…”

Stiles scoffed and nervously ran a hand through his hair in that endearing way he always did. Lydia could almost see all the words that had stayed in Stiles’s mind for so long filling the entire room, they made all the colours vibrate, they made his eyes shine with such beauty she thought she could get lost in them for days without needing anything more than his love.

It was a lot to take in, and they both beamed at each other, feeling with their entire body that they would remember this day for the rest of their lives. Lydia had thought it was crazy how literature and cinema made you believe that the most important moments in your life were an explosion of sounds, colours and feelings but now she knew it was true.

Of course, her heart was beating wildly, but for the most part she was calm. She was taking Stiles in, staring at his handsome face, knowing she would be his forever.

For the first time in her life, there was only one thought taking up all the space in her brain and it was this:

She would be his, he would be hers.

And they would be safe.

Finally, safe and together.

The air was now clear after their stupid fight and replaced by something else. Something deep rooted in her, some tension that made her abdominal muscles clench with anticipation and her heart flutter higher and higher. The longer she stayed locked in his stare, the more difficult it was to stop. Especially when Stiles’s jaw was slack like it was, his parted lips letting out a loud and shallow breath. The way his eyes kept roaming her face, like he was marvelling at every single detail he found, she knew the last strings or her former mask had frayed and they were lying at their feet with that ugly cold face she had always forced herself to wear.

As if Stiles had read her mind, he stepped forward, and all the ropes that had kept their hearts in a prison of lies and pretences were reduced to dust. She took his fingers in her hands and brought them to her cheeks and lips, kissing them lightly and relishing in the feeling of his caresses **.** She trembled as if it was the first time she had ever felt his touch. In some way, it was, and she caught herself wanting more.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked her in a low whisper, trying and failing to divert his eyes from her lips.

“Nothing…” she wet her lips and slowly took his hands lower, guiding them to her waist. They stayed like that a few seconds, so close that they could feel each other’s abdomen rise and fall at a quick rhythm. His thumb reached her navel over her blouse and she shuddered, fearing that her legs that were already reduced to cotton and would give way. She wanted to close her eyes, but he was blushing so perfectly that she forced herself to stay focused, shyly brushing her fingers over his stomach. Lowering her gaze and swallowing, she asked, “So… You’re really not attracted to Ashley?”

Stiles chuckled and lowered his gaze as well, wriggling his fingers in her hands to pull her closer to him. “I’m really not.”

When their stares met, Lydia felt the air being pulled out of her lungs. There was an undeniable desire in his eyes but also an incredible tenderness. She let herself drown in it, feeling her neck and cheeks heat up. “Why?” she asked in a whisper, her eyes glued to his lips.

“Because,” Lydia could tell Stiles was struggling to look as confident as possible, lowering his head until their noses brushed. But at the same time, he kept breathing erratically and she could feel his entire body quivering against hers, his blood pulsing strong through his veins. It made her love him and want him even more. “I’m usually attracted to 5’3 strawberry-blonde girls with green eyes…” He kissed the skin under her nose and Lydia didn’t even try to muffle her sharp inhale. “Scratch that, I’m usually attracted to one tiny strawberry-blonde girl with the most beautiful green eyes…”

She chuckled and pushed him lightly but kept a hold on his shirt, “I’m not that tiny…”

“Yes, you are, and it attracts me a lot…” Something suddenly changed in Stiles’s behaviour, as if he wasn’t trying to look confident anymore because _it was them_ and he didn’t have to _try_ anything with her. He kissed the crown of her head to emphasize how much smaller than him she was. “I’m attracted to your hair,” he continued in a low tone, kissing her temples and punctuating each of his statements with a kiss. “I’m attracted to your forehead…your eyebrows…your eyes…your nose…your cheek…your ears… I’m _so_ attracted to your neck…” He lingered there, sucking a little on the skin right under her ear. Lydia closed her eyes and grabbed his hair to pull him closer, gasping when she felt his hands tightening around her waist and the pressure of his crotch against hers.

“What else?” she asked, out of breath as he leaned back and threw her a gaze full of lust. Behind it, Lydia spotted a hint of panic and before it could settle into him, she cupped his cheeks and kissed his nose, smiling. “My chin, are you attracted to my chin?”

It seemed to momentarily break Stiles out of his trance, and he replied with an amused voice, “Well yeah, of course I’m attracted to your chin…”. He kissed it, but Lydia knew that lightening the mood wasn’t enough, that he needed more from her. She brought his face to her shoulder and he leaned against it, nuzzling in the crook of her neck. His breath was deep and slow, and his hands clenched at her waist. He was fighting a panic attack and she did what she always did in those moments: she wrapped her arms around him and ran soothingly her fingers through his hair.

“Stiles,” she said softly, “it’s alright. We don’t have to rush into anything. I…I love you and I’m not going anywhere.” She tightened her embrace when she felt his body shaking with sobs, marvelling at the fact that those three little words had come out so easily. Maybe had they never been tangled like the others? They had been as clear as a summer sky all along. He buried his fingers in her hair and a few tears rolled down his cheeks, falling on her shoulder. “Stiles, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, actually.” He lifted his head to look at her and faintly grazed her face. “I love you so much, Lydia, you have no idea… It killed me, I… I couldn’t understand how I could love you this much and still not have your name on my wrist. It’s… What’s happening is almost unreal to me, I’d like to… I don’t know. There are so many things I wanna say to you and…” He heaved a deep sigh and resumed, sounding aggravated. “My stupid body won’t let me keep my blood up here…” he explained, pointing towards his temple **.** “I don’t want you to think that I just wanted to… You know…”

Lydia chuckled, putting her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m… I’m not laughing at you, but Stiles… Nothing you could do or say will change what I feel about you. I love you. I love you so much that I lost track of time earlier in front of your door! I love you so much I showed you my soulmark in the middle of a bar where I drank beer… Beer, Stiles, beer!” The hint of a smile turned the corner of her lips upward as she saw him laugh. “I love every version of you, Stiles. I love you when you’re a nerd, when you talk too much, when you show how smart you are, when you tell me the most romantic things I have ever heard, I even love you when you’re grumpy…” She took his chin between her fingers to make him look at her and lowered her voice. “And I’m sure I’d love you just the same if you’d give in and take me on that sink.”

At those words, she felt Stiles’s entire body tense, the growing pressure of his crotch and his sudden groan adding up to an unbearable desire. She thought he was going to finally crash his lips against hers because he leaned his head against hers. Her eyes closed in anticipation, but instead she felt his lips brush her cheek and she could swear he was smirking against her skin.

“Mieczyslaw Stilinski, you’re just a big tease, you know that, right?” She laughed when she felt his fingers tickling her ribs and going up until they brushed the side of her breasts, making her shiver and moan faintly.

“I’m gonna revoke your right to use that name…” he said, lifting his head to grin at her but not withdrawing his fingers.

“Oh, you are certainly not… I have it in my veins, remember?”

She was struggling to keep a straight face as his fingers were applying more and more pressure against her breasts, almost cupping them, but she managed to throw him a self-confident grin as she hooked her fingers to his belt to bring him closer between her legs.

“Oh yeah? My name’s in your veins?” he asked, poking the tip of his tongue out of his mouth to wet his lips.

“Yeah, look…” She was about to remove her wristband with a teasing smile when she felt Stiles hands covering her fingers.

“Let me…”

His husky tone made her heart jump and she felt a delicious warmth spread in her body. He slowly removed her wristband and brought her wrist to his lips.

Wrapping her hand around his neck to pull him closer, she asked him, “Are you gonna kiss me now?”

His breath mingling with her own was intoxicating. She felt his hands around her ribs, his thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts and she knew at that moment that having Stiles Stilinski as your soulmate was definitely not for anyone.

“Eventually, yes.”

And with that, he gently kissed her. Lydia gasped and let Stiles set his own rhythm, alternating between shy pecks and lingering strokes from the tip of his lips that were sending her brain reeling. Completely dizzy and in love, Lydia let him navigate her through feelings she had never experienced. She felt his hands slide back to massage her lower back before firmly grabbing her ass, making her open her mouth to greet his tongue, their noses crashing against each other.

Out of breath, they leaned back but kept their bodies connected, needing to feel the other one as closely as possible.

“Lydia, I’m not taking you on that sink… Not for the first time anyway…”

“What about my bed?”

He took her lips between his and they both inhaled sharply.

“Yeah… Let’s go to your bed. You do want to, right?”

Lydia couldn’t contain her laugh and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “Stiles,” she said while lifting her head. “You’re infuriating… I want you so badly, it’s almost painful.”

He kissed her one last time, releasing her lower lip slowly. “Let’s go, then.” He was about to take her hand and lead her to her bedroom when he froze and looked at her, almost scared. “That was bad, right? I shouldn’t say stuff like that… I mean, it wasn’t as bad as if I had counted down but… Did I just dissolve all that… sexual tension?” He closed his eyes and bit his lips. “Why am I saying stuff like that? I shouldn’t be allowed to talk in these situations…”

Lydia was looking at him, trying to not burst into laughter. “Well, I wouldn’t say you shouldn’t talk, because I definitely enjoy it, and don’t worry about the…sexual tension, it’s still there,” she said with a reassuring smile, nibbling at her lips.

“Really? I’m allowed to talk during sex?”

“As long as you don’t start counting down, then it’s more than okay with me.”

Then, she leaned to kiss him, her hand slowly sliding down from his shoulder to his lower back as she walked around him, heading to her bedroom.

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles was half asleep beside Lydia with his head on her bare stomach. When he wasn’t stroking her side or kissing her skin wherever his mouth landed, he was tracing the outline of her breasts absentmindedly with his fingers. Lydia felt herself drifting into sleep, Stiles’s soft hair under her fingers and the weight of his body making her feel safe and loved.

Suddenly, she opened her eyes, “I have to show you something!” she said, gesturing at him to move.

Her stomach vibrated with the echo of his groan. “I’m not moving… Too comfy…”

“But you’ll love it, I’m sure… And if you don’t, I…” she bit her lips, trying to find something she could bargain with, “I’ll let you braid my hair!”

He lifted his head, a goofy smile plastered on his lips. “What am I, eight?”

“Do I have to remind you how many times you actually asked to braid my hair?”

With a sigh, he moved away from her after dropping one last kiss on her stomach. He watched her looking for something in her desk drawers before coming back into his opened arms, an old notebook in her hands. With a contagious yawn, she looked for a page and gave it to him.

When she spoke, her tone was almost shy. “That was my grand-mother’s diary. My mom gave it to me when I was old enough. I like to read it sometimes. But there’s one page I only read once because it felt too…intimate, maybe. I always thought she was talking to my grand-father or to her soulmate, Maddy but now… I think that she may have been talking to you.”

“To me?”

“Well, not you especially, but to… my soulmate. Or maybe to you especially… After all, she knew your parents when we were kids so, maybe she saw your soulmark and figured it out…”

She smiled at him with the most beautiful smile Stiles had ever seen. He wrapped his arm around her head to let her nestle more comfortably against him, then planted a kiss in her hair while massaging her temple. As he read, he could feel her falling asleep.

 

_January 7 th 2001_

_My little Ariel is the best accomplishment in my son’s life. There, I said it. I’ll never tell him, or anyone for that matter, but I know I can tell you. My Lydia is a rare treasure, but you already know that._

_I wanted to tell you what’s been happening since Christmas Eve here. She’s barely 7 and already reads everything she can find. It won’t be a surprise to you if I tell you she comments on everything, even on cereal packaging!_

_His father didn’t like it when I offered her a rare edition of_ The Little Prince _for Christmas. He doesn’t like it when I “fill her head with my nonsense”. He already doesn’t like it when I play along with her and call her Ariel. He thinks she should focus on the real world._

_Sadly, he doesn’t know her as I do. He doesn’t realize how fragile her soul is. It’s not a soul that can be fed like ours, it needs to be uplifted. Only then, will it be able to have enough strength to grow by itself. I never saw a soul as rare as Lydia’s. It’s a new one, that’s for sure. But at the same time, it contains so much it makes me dizzy just to think about what she must be feeling._

_Since she was old enough to go to school, her soulmark has changed five or six times. Needless to say, she is one of the very few to already have one. I know what people will say about her later. They’ll call her a slut, an easy girl… It already makes me sick… But I know you’ll be there to watch over her, even if she doesn’t realize it, because those people will be wrong. But you already know that, don’t you? You already know why her soulmark changes. You also know that she’ll have to wait years before she has her definitive soulmark._

_Lydia is on this Earth to love. Despite everything she may display, her little soul will ache more than any other soul because of that. I can tell she’s starting to put an armour between her soul and the world to protect it. There’s nothing I can do to stop her from doing it, from burying herself under that mask she wears. Fortunately, she doesn’t wear it with me. I worry that if she hides for too long, she’ll never be able to know herself. Then, she’ll have to use all of her strength to cut all the ropes she’s tightening around her soul, around her mind, and around herself._

_She watches people a lot, probably looking for someone like her. But her eyes seem to always fall on the wrong people. She watches herself a lot too, looking into mirrors for any flaw she thinks has to be hidden. I’m scared for her. I’m scared she’s going to fall into the trap that society builds for girls. She’ll live through other people’s eyes and won’t let her soul shine as brightly as it could._

_I know I can count on you to help her. She has to make peace with who she is. She has to come home._

_Since Christmas, we’ve been reading_ The Little Prince _every night. She also reads it alone during the day, and every time, I see in her eyes that same question she had asked me when we first read it: Do you think we all end up alone on our planet?_

_I know she thinks about all those characters, alone and miserable on their planets. But I know she also thinks about the rose, alone on her planet, waiting for the little prince to come back to her on B612. She thinks about that rose who found a ground to settle but is unable to build a home without the little prince._

_It’s no wonder she asks herself that kind of question, she knows her parents didn’t marry their soulmates, and I think she understood that mine has joined the stars…_

_I try to be reassuring. I remind her that the rose found the little prince at the beginning after all, and that no matter what, he was trying to come back to her as fast as he could. Not knowing if he manages to fly back to B612 at the end drives her crazy. I know she’s looking for the answer in the spaces between the lines in the drawings and in any blank on the pages. It breaks my heart. I can’t convince her that it doesn’t matter whether we know it or not, that what’s most important is that we keep believing that it will end well. No matter what happens – we must keep hope. But she needs to be reassured, to_ know _things._

_I know I’ll have to leave her soon, but she won’t be alone. You’ll be there, waiting and watching over her. You soul is as old as the Universe itself, and I know you’ll know how to help her. I know you’ll make sure she finds her way back to B612._

It didn’t end there. Lorraine had added a few lines that seemed to be quotes from the book.

_“As the little prince dropped off to sleep, I took him in my arms and set out walking once more. I felt deeply moved, and stirred. It seemed to me that I was carrying a very fragile treasure. It seemed to me, even, that there was nothing more fragile on Earth. In the moonlight I looked at his pale forehead, his closed eyes, his locks of hair trembled in the wind, and I said to myself: “What I see here is nothing but a shell. What is important is invisible…”_

_“As his lips opened slightly with the suspicion of a half-smile, I said to myself, again: “What moves me so deeply, about this little prince who is sleeping here, is his loyalty to a flower – the image of a rose that shines through his whole being like the flame of a lamp, even when he is asleep…” And I felt him to be more fragile still. I felt the need of protecting him, as if he himself were a flame that might be extinguish by a little puff of wind…”_

_You know what I mean, right?”_

Stiles closed Lorraine’s diary and didn’t even try to dry his wet eyes. He smiled at Lydia’s sleeping figure against him. The love he felt for her was overwhelming him, making his chest expand to a point he didn’t know could be possible.

Yes, he perfectly understood what she meant.

He lowered his voice as much as possible to avoid startling Lydia and looked up. “I don’t know if you can hear me Lorraine but…you’re right, she does have the soul of a little prince, she always has. I never met someone who loves as much as she does. Her soul his so young and yet…she got hurt so many times because she was never afraid of loving people, even when they didn’t deserve her love. She’s my most precious treasure. I’ll never hurt her, and I’ll always try to give her back as much as she’s giving me. I’ll protect her, I promise you.”

As he turned his head, Stiles noticed that Lydia had opened her eyes. “You’re wrong,” she whispered as quietly as he had. “You’ve loved me your entire life. You knew my soul’s real name before I even did. You love even more than I do.”

He smiled, too overwhelmed to say anything. The silence stretched a little. “Lydia?” he asked hesitantly, still whispering.

“Mmh?”

“If I had showed you my soulmark when we were kids, do you think it would have helped you get your own sooner?”

She lifted her head and kissed his lips. “Maybe, but it doesn’t matter.” She kissed him again, deeper. “Because even when I still hadn’t my soulmark, I think something inside of me knew I belonged on B612.”

Stiles brushed his lips against Lydia’s with the hint of a smile.

“You were always my rose, Stiles. I didn’t know it, but it helped me. _You_ helped me stay anchored, helped my soul to breathe, to keep on living and move towards you. After all, you’ve had my soul on your wrist since the very beginning, keeping it safe. It was there, whether I knew it or not. That’s what’s most important, don’t you think?”

“Maybe…” They kissed again, Lydia’s sighing moan making Stiles completely melt and he kept talking as low as possible. “I never want you to leave this planet ever again… I want to live here with you, even if it’s only the two of us.” He closed his eyes, breathing Lydia in and laying his head above hers.

“We’ll live here forever, if that’s what you want.”

“I always knew you weren’t from this Earth. There’s something about you…I don’t know how to explain it, but you have more light in you than most people. I hope I’m worthy of your love. I hope I’ll be able to live in the stars with you.”

He wasn’t making any sense, he knew that. But there were still tangled words in his mind, and he didn’t care if they weren’t coming out in the right order, or in sentences that made sense. What mattered was that they were out, spread through the room and in every corner, like hundreds of balloons. It didn’t matter whether their colours were good combinations or not, what mattered was that Lydia could see them, smile, and pick one from time to time to tie it to the strings she kept unravelling when she let her own words out.

“Stiles,” she replied in a whisper, “you’ve always been the brightest star. Can’t you see it? It was you I kept being drawn to, you who kept showing me the way. You have so much more to show me than you think, and I’m ready now…I have been for a while.”

Their conversation died down and Stiles let her steady breath lull him to sleep, marvelling at the masterpiece of colours they had made in her bedroom. Now their words were out, they were even more beautiful. If they wanted to hear one again, all they had to do was reach out. He hoped they would soon fill both of their apartments with them. The campus, the entire college, the continent, the Earth and the Universe.

“I’m not done, Stiles.” She added in a sleepy voice, as if she could read his mind. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been the case. “I wanna tell you so many things.”

“Me too,” his voice was a low whisper in her ear, and he felt her shiver in his arms. “I can’t wait for what comes next.”

Lydia didn’t answer but laid her lips on his skin and nuzzled closer to him.

Once again, Stiles silently swore to Lorraine to keep watching over Lydia’s soul for the rest of his life, knowing that if he ever failed, he would keep on trying in every life he would get.

If it was the purpose of his presence on Earth, so be it.

Nothing compared to a life with Lydia by his side, he had always known that. He had always known that his home wasn’t a true one if she wasn’t in it.

He had her by his side, her soul in his blood, and it finally felt like home.

What Stiles didn’t know was that Lydia was looking at the name in her veins, wishing she would never have to hide it because she couldn’t be more proud.

She barely remembered Claudia, but she closed her eyes and thanked her for trusting her with her son’s soul. Lydia promised to always love and protect it with her life. Now that she had found her way back to Stiles, she knew it wasn’t the first time their souls had lost and found each other.

But it would be the last one. They would never leave each other’s side again.

Because when she looked at that name on her wrist, the name that had seemed so cold a few days ago, it was now as warm as Stiles’s breath against her hair.

And it felt like coming home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Don't forget, comments are always appreciated, however long or short they are :)
> 
> Christina, thank you so much for your help, you're the best <3


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